Interesting article from Rolling Stone as to who the biggest liar of the presidential candidates. The method used was to use PolitiFact to check the statements made by the candidates. I don't think anyone would be surprised the top candidates are all republicans with Ben Carson topping the field at 84% and Trump at 75%. How do the Democratic candidates fair? Sanders and Clinton come in at 28% and O'Malley at 25%.Rolling Stone

Still, as I said, Trump attacking him on that issue, well, wow, pots & kettles.

And, BTW, it's interesting that the candidate tagged with such high untrustworthiness in the polls (HRC) certainly isn't in fact being less factual than her primary rivals. Let alone the clown car.

P.S. please, HRC anti-fans, that was just an observation, not a statement of primary support/endorsement.

As for Rand Paul, well, what worries me about that 'candidate of sanity' is how much of the crazy from his father Ron dwells within him. (Let's recall Ron Paul opposed the Civil Rights Act, said he wanted to shut down just about every Cabinet department, and allow each state to print their own currency.) It's a very Star Wars-like conundrum.

Christie is having his moment of rehabilitation, but I don't think the haunting of the ghost of Bridgegate past is done ... yet.

Jeb Bush ... btw, have I ever mentioned that when he was working as a realtor in Miami many years ago, he came by our house to look at it when it was for sale? (Never brought an interested buyer. And yes, this was before he became a politician. And no, he didn't introduce himself, but I did recognize him.)

Wow, I am truly amazed that a site with a left wing bias such as PolitiFact has would come up with results like those shown in the chart......not. Actually what they have is a selective bias that supports their left wing beliefs.

"my choice is for people like you to be deported -Ike Bana 5/13/18

"within weeks of being rid of the likes of you, rid of every fucking one of you,we would begin to see what kind of country this ought to be" Ike Bana 6/14/18

The article judges Carson as one of the biggest liars and Clinton as one of the most truthful.

What this analysis largely ignores is how many statement were checked for accuracy.....

PolitiFact has found that the biggest liar of this election cycle so far is Ben Carson. Not a single one of Carson's 25 statements fact-checked by the site was judged to be true; only one was rated "mostly true," and just three "half true." Twenty-one of Carson's statements — a full 84 percent of those checked — were declared either mostly false, entirely false or "pants on fire," PolitiFact's designation for the most ludicrous lies.

<snip>

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton each had 28 percent of their remarks ruled false or mostly false.

<snip>

The other is Martin O'Malley, who had the fewest number of fact-checked statements (just 16, compared to Sanders' 43 and Clinton's 140)

So 28% of Clinton's 140 fact checked statements were judged to be false. That's 39 false statements. Carson, on the other hand, only had 21 statements that were judged false.

So Clinton had just about twice as many false statements as Carson, yet Carson supposedly is the "biggest liar."

glenfs » Sun Dec 20, 2015 6:10 pm wrote:Wow, I am truly amazed that a site with a left wing bias such as PolitiFact has would come up with results like those shown in the chart......not. Actually what they have is a selective bias that supports their left wing beliefs.

Got proof that PolitiFact has left wing bias or is this just another one of your Troll-and-runaway posts?

I could post as many links as you wanted but, of course most would not bother looking at them, none would ever admit their bias, and most would claim the sites that were exposing the bias were themselves bias. So I suggest you google "is politifact bias" and learn for yourself.

"my choice is for people like you to be deported -Ike Bana 5/13/18

"within weeks of being rid of the likes of you, rid of every fucking one of you,we would begin to see what kind of country this ought to be" Ike Bana 6/14/18

The article judges Carson as one of the biggest liars and Clinton as one of the most truthful.

What this analysis largely ignores is how many statement were checked for accuracy.....

So 28% of Clinton's 140 fact checked statements were judged to be false. That's 39 false statements. Carson, on the other hand, only had 21 statements that were judged false.

So Clinton had just about twice as many false statements as Carson, yet Carson supposedly is the "biggest liar."

That's asinine.

When you have a different number of statements made by different candidates you have to have some sort of measurement to determine which candidate had the lies. Going only by the number of false statements without comparing to how many statements the candidate made doesn't give a good perspective. If all candidates made the same number of statements then you could compare the truthfulness of the statements equally but since that's not possible, you have to go with the percentage of truthful or false statements. Since 21 of Carson's 25 statements were false his percentage of false statements (lies) is 84% and you can compare that figure to the percentage of false statements made by the other candidates who may or may not have more statements made than Carson. It's like comparing batting averages among players. Players with less at-bats will most likely have a higher batting average than players with a lot of at-bats.

You could also make the case that Clinton has made more truthful statements than Carson so either way you look at it, percentage versus actual truthful statements, the fact remains Carson is more likely to make a false statement.

glenfs » Sun Dec 20, 2015 6:28 pm wrote:
I could post as many links as you wanted but, of course most would not bother looking at them, none would ever admit their bias, and most would claim the sites that were exposing the bias were themselves bias. So I suggest you google "is politifact bias" and learn for yourself.

You made the claim so it's up to you to prove it.

You stated another thread about New Year's resolutions so how about adding a resolution that you'll backup your statements and you won't wait for the New Year and start now.

Number6 » Sun Dec 20, 2015 10:33 pm wrote:
When you have a different number of statements made by different candidates you have to have some sort of measurement to determine which candidate had the lies. Going only by the number of false statements without comparing to how many statements the candidate made doesn't give a good perspective. If all candidates made the same number of statements then you could compare the truthfulness of the statements equally but since that's not possible, you have to go with the percentage of truthful or false statements. Since 21 of Carson's 25 statements were false his percentage of false statements (lies) is 84% and you can compare that figure to the percentage of false statements made by the other candidates who may or may not have more statements made than Carson. It's like comparing batting averages among players. Players with less at-bats will most likely have a higher batting average than players with a lot of at-bats.

You could also make the case that Clinton has made more truthful statements than Carson so either way you look at it, percentage versus actual truthful statements, the fact remains Carson is more likely to make a false statement.

This is an anti-PolitiFact website which means it is biased. Really, you could have done something better than picking the first website appearing on Google. This is almost as funny as the time when you were challenged to backup one of your claims and you posted a link to a white supremacist website and then claimed you didn't know it was a white supremacist website.

Number6 » Sun Dec 20, 2015 10:33 pm wrote:
When you have a different number of statements made by different candidates you have to have some sort of measurement to determine which candidate had the lies. Going only by the number of false statements without comparing to how many statements the candidate made doesn't give a good perspective. If all candidates made the same number of statements then you could compare the truthfulness of the statements equally but since that's not possible, you have to go with the percentage of truthful or false statements. Since 21 of Carson's 25 statements were false his percentage of false statements (lies) is 84% and you can compare that figure to the percentage of false statements made by the other candidates who may or may not have more statements made than Carson. It's like comparing batting averages among players. Players with less at-bats will most likely have a higher batting average than players with a lot of at-bats.

You could also make the case that Clinton has made more truthful statements than Carson so either way you look at it, percentage versus actual truthful statements, the fact remains Carson is more likely to make a false statement.

Wrong.

One difference between this analysis and the batting average analogy you used is, in baseball, every at-bat is counted. There isn't some "statistician" out there only counting the at-bats he judges worthy of counting.

Judgmentally picking which statements are challenged from a population of all statements made is selection bias and it makes it impossible to draw any conclusions about the population from which those statements are drawn.

Number6 » Sun Dec 20, 2015 10:21 pm wrote:
This is an anti-PolitiFact website which means it is biased. Really, you could have done something better than picking the first website appearing on Google. This is almost as funny as the time when you were challenged to backup one of your claims and you posted a link to a white supremacist website and then claimed you didn't know it was a white supremacist website.

All he had to do is to go to the sponsor of the web blog to get the back story of how they manipulated their own "politifact" story. It's all in the open, Tell a lie and repeat it often... the dummies will follow.http://bewznewznvewz.blogspot.com/2012/ ... ts_31.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tweedledum doesn't talk very often. He's only made 30 speeches to the media. 25 of them are false. That would indicate that he has lied 83% of the time.
Tweedledee is very talkative. He's made 100 speeches to the media. 30 of them are false. That would indicate that he has lied 30% of the time.

In this case, which is more important. The absolute number, or the rate?

In the universe I live in, truthiness is based on the rate or probability of lying. I would then estimate in the future, Tweedledum is more likely to lie.

Wouldn't said bias, if it existed, cause them to check or challenge more c/R statements, not fewer?

If bias is present, it would not manifest as undercount. If they were biased against Republicans, they would fact-check more of their statements than Democrats, not fewer.

If I judgmentally select only one statement a politician has made that I deem suspect, and I analyze it and conclude it is indeed false, have I proven the politician who made the statement is wrong (or "lies") 100% of the time?

One difference between this analysis and the batting average analogy you used is, in baseball, every at-bat is counted. There isn't some "statistician" out there only counting the at-bats he judges worthy of counting.

Judgmentally picking which statements are challenged from a population of all statements made is selection bias and it makes it impossible to draw any conclusions about the population from which those statements are drawn.

The candidates make many statements but not all of them are fact checked because there are many that are obviously true. It's the statements that appear hard to believe that gets fact checked. As the second paragraph in the link I provided, had you read it, said: "The website doesn't check every politician's or candidate's statements, just the ones likely to provoke the most debate. But even by that scattershot standard, the website has had its work cut out for it this election cycle, as PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan discussed in a recent piece for the New York Times."

And had you read the link and followed the link referencing The New York Times you'd have read what Angie Drobnic said: "Fact-checking’s methodology emphasizes the issue at hand and facts on the ground. Politicians can either make their case or they can’t. Candidates’ fans may complain about press bias, but my impression is that less partisan voters pay a lot of attention to these media moments, especially when elections are close and decided by a few percentage points. Trust and integrity are still crucial assets for a politician."

My analogy to batting averages and the candidate's fact checked statements is actually valid because the number of the candidate's statements that are fact checked are based upon the questionably of the statements so these statements would be comparable to an at-bat for a ball player. The number of truthful statements would equate with the batting average in that the higher the batting average the more truthful the candidate is and conversely, the lower the batting average the less truthful the candiidate is.

Col. Jessep » Sun Dec 20, 2015 11:03 pm wrote:
If I judgmentally select only one statement a politician has made that I deem suspect, and I analyze it and conclude it is indeed false, have I proven the politician who made the statement is wrong (or "lies") 100% of the time?

And yet... you are entitled to your opinion based on how the facts are manipulated (and your prejudices) and presented to you, but they may not be the truthful fact that is, and your opinion on how it was presented to you is just that... your's.

Number6 » Mon Dec 21, 2015 12:05 am wrote:My analogy to batting averages and the candidate's fact checked statements is actually valid because the number of the candidate's statements that are fact checked are based upon the questionably of the statements so these statements would be comparable to an at-bat for a ball player.

Again, Politifact isn't looking at all statements made. They only look at the ones they deem questionable.

Baseball statisticians look at every at-bat. Not just the ones they deem questionable.

There is a colossal difference between those two things. If you can't see why that difference is critically important here, oh well.

Col. Jessep » Mon Dec 21, 2015 12:03 am wrote:If I judgmentally select only one statement a politician has made that I deem suspect, and I analyze it and conclude it is indeed false, have I proven the politician who made the statement is wrong (or "lies") 100% of the time?

Obviously, I haven't proved the politician lies 100% of the time. He only lied the one time I decided to fact check him.

Assume he made one thousand statements I didn't fact check. Can I draw any conclusions about how many lies he told out of those thousand statements based on the one statement I chose to fact check? Obviously, I can't.

The only conclusion I can validly draw is the politician lied once. The authors of the article you linked want you to draw another conclusion. You would be wrong to do so.

Col. Jessep » Sun Dec 20, 2015 11:23 pm wrote:
One difference between this analysis and the batting average analogy you used is, in baseball, every at-bat is counted. There isn't some "statistician" out there only counting the at-bats he judges worthy of counting.

Apparently you do not know how baseball is scored.

No, not every at-bat in baseball counts.

There are several types of appearances at the plate by a batter in baseball that do no count as at-bats.

And so, even in a game of entertainment like baseball we rig the system in small ways that many of the greatest players of the game were quite aware of and did their absolute best to exploit (e.g. in pursuit of titles like league MVP).

As a misanthrope you must surely be aware that such would be the case, no?

Obviously, I haven't proved the politician lies 100% of the time. He only lied the one time I decided to fact check him.

Assume he made one thousand statements I didn't fact check. Can I draw any conclusions about how many lies he told out of those thousand statements based on the one statement I chose to fact check? Obviously, I can't.

The only conclusion I can validly draw is the politician lied once. The authors of the article you linked want you to draw another conclusion. You would be wrong to do so.

All you're doing is arguing for the sake of arguing with nothing worthy to add to the discussion. When you have something of value to add please let us know other than that the rest of us will continue on.